the Greek and Latin poets vied with each other in portraying Hades and
the joys and terrors of its two states.


The Second or General Judgment.

The Egyptian Astrologers, recognizing the soul as a material entity,
and conceiving the idea that in the future life it would require a
material organization for its perfect action, taught that at the
general judgment it would be re-united to its resurrected body. In
conformity to this belief, Job is made to say in chapter xix. 25, 26,
"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter
day upon the earth; and though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh
shall I see God." The higher class Egyptians, however, fearing that
their existence would continue to be of the same shadowy and intangible
character after the second judgment, as they believed it would be in
the Amenti, if worms were allowed to destroy their bodies, hoped to
preserve them until that time by the process of embalming.

The imaginary events to occur in connection with the second judgment,
which, constituting the finale of the plan of redemption, and
inculcated in what are known as the doctrines of Second Adventism, were
to be inaugurated by an archangel sounding a trumpet summoning the
quick and the dead to appear before the bar of the gods to receive
their final awards. At the second judgment, designated in the
allegories as "the last day," "day of judgment," "great and terrible
day of the Lord," etc., it was taught that the tenth and last saviour
would make his second advent by descending upon the clouds, and after
the final awards, the elect being caught up "to meet the Lord in the
air" (I. Thes. iv. 17), the heaven and the earth would be reduced to